Writing vs. Parenting

Obsess much? Why yes I do. Whenever I begin an undertaking, I commit myself to it fully, maniacally, forgoing sleep, food, and sanity to complete my chosen task. I ignore the rest of the world while frantically scrambling to accomplish my goals. Once, I sat on the living room floor at my mom's house and assembled a model car from start to finish--over the course of twelve straight hours. Because I have a need to finish tasks in this fashion, the other things in my life tend to get ignored. And if I am worried that I won't be able to finish a project immediately, I'll often not begin it at all. Some may call that procrastination or laziness, but I call it staving off madness.

This same sad truth applies to my writing. I love writing. Whenever I get on a roll, I lose myself in the process and inevitably lose all track of time. I've written for as many as twelve hours in a day, during which time my children may have been arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for some or other egregious offense that should have been easily averted by an attentive parent. Therein lies the problem. I want to write. I want to begin another book and I need to work on getting my first book published. But I do neglect Truman during the day while I am in obsessive-compulsive writing mode. Next year, he will attend pre-school for three or four hours a day, so I will have some more free time to write then. However, I will still have to stop what I'm doing, drive to the school to pick him up, make lunch, play with him, pick up Alex and Tiana at the bus stop a couple hours later, do some chores around the house, and get supper going for Mama, etc. Had Hemingway been required to clean house and take care of a pre-schooler, would he ever have written A Farewell to Arms? I doubt it.

I imagine that very few of the world's most successful writers were stay-at-home dads. Now don't get me wrong, I love being a stay-at-home dad. I wouldn't trade it for any 9 to 5 job on earth. But just imagine if you will, working an 8 to 10 hour shift at your job, spending time with your family after work, and then trying to find the time and energy to write the great American novel. Oh yeah, and you'll need to sleep once in a while, too. Once all three of my kids are in school full-time, then I will have a lot more time to work on my writing. But that is still another year and a half down the road. In the meantime, I will try to strike a balance between being a housekeeper, chef, babysitter, taxi driver, coach, husband, handyman, groundskeeper, mechanic, carpenter, pet groomer, writer, and lunatic. Wish me luck.